9.4.13 TrueType fonts in X
The standard xfs in XFree86-4 works fine with TrueType fonts. You
have to install a third-party font server such as xfs-xtt, if you
are using XFree86-3.
You just need to make sure that whatever applications you want to use the
TrueType fonts are linked against libXft or libfreetype (you probably don't
even have to worry about this if you're using pre-compiled .debs).
First set up font support infrastructure:
-
Install x-ttcidfont-conf and defoma packages. This
automates generation of the fonts.scale and fonts.dir
files.
# apt-get install x-ttcidfont-conf
-
Edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 in the Section
"Files" as:
Section "Files"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
EndSection
The first line will setup XFree86 to use any TrueType fonts you install from
Debian packages. Type1 font entry is moved down since XFree86 does a rather
poor job of rendering Type1 fonts. The :unscaled trick for bitmap
fonts should not be needed for new XF4 anymore but I included it here just be
sure.
In order to preserve manual changes of /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
follow instructions in
Configuring the X server
manually, Section 9.4.3.3.
Then install DFSG font packages:
-
Western TrueType fonts:
-
ttf-bitstream-vera: A set of high-quality TrueType fonts created
by Bitstream, Inc. [
40]
-
ttf-freefont: A set of free high-quality TrueType fonts covering
the UCS character set.
-
ttf-thryomanes: A TrueType Unicode font covering Latin, Greek,
Cyrillic, and IPA.
-
Asian fonts:
-
tfm-arphic-bsmi00lp: Chinese Arphic "AR PL Mingti2L
Big5" TrueType font TeX font metric data
-
tfm-arphic-bkai00mp: Chinese Arphic "AR PL KaitiM Big5"
TrueType font TeX font metric data
-
tfm-arphic-gbsn00lp: Chinese Arphic "AR PL SungtiL GB"
TrueType font TeX font metric data
-
tfm-arphic-gkai00mp: Chinese Arphic "AR PL KaitiM GB"
TrueType font TeX font metric data
-
ttf-baekmuk: Korean Baekmuk series TrueType fonts
-
hbf-jfs56: Chinese Jianti Fangsong 56x56 bitmap font (GB2312) for
CJK
-
hbf-cns40-b5: Chinese Fanti Song 40x40 bitmap font (Big5) for CJK
-
hbf-kanji48: Japanese Kanji 48x48 bitmap font (JIS X-0208) for CJK
Since Free fonts are sometimes limited, installing or sharing
some commercial TrueType fonts is an option for a Debian users. In order to
make this process easy for the user, some convenience packages have been
created:
You'll have a really good selection of TrueType fonts at the expense of
contaminating your Free system with non-Free fonts.
All these font packages in Debian should work without any efforts and appear
available to all X programs that use the regular "core" font system.
This includes things like Xterm, Emacs, and most other non-KDE and non-GNOME
applications.
Now, run xfontsel and select any TrueType fonts in the fndry menu,
you should be able to see many ungrayed out entries in the "fmly"
menu.
For KDE2.2 and GNOME1.4 (with libgdkxft0, which is a hack to get GTK 1.2 to do
anti-aliased font rendering), you need to setup Xft1, as well. Xft1 is highly
deprecated, and is basically only used by GNOME1.4 and KDE2.2. Edit
/etc/X11/XftConfig and add a line like
dir "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
before the other dir lines. [
42]
For GNOME2 and KDE3 (post Sarge release), you need to setup
fontconfig which Xft2 uses to find fonts. [43] You shouldn't need to install
anything extra for this because every package using fontconfig
Depends on it (indirectly) already.
First, look in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. There should be a line like
the one below. If not, open up /etc/fonts/local.conf and add this
<dir>/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType</dir>
just after the <fontconfig> line.
Fontconfig should pick these up immediately, and
"fc-list" should list your new fonts. Another neat feature of
fontconfig is that you can just drop fonts in
~/.fonts/ and all your fontconfigified programs will have access
to them immediately.
If you manually install a new set of TrueType fonts while in X without using
Debian package, run
# xset fp rehash
to get XFree86 to look at the contents of that directory again and to pickup
new ones.
